The Wars of the Roses

CHAPTER XXIX
THE BATTLE OF BARNET

Memorable was the spring of 1471 destined to be in the history of England's baronage, and in the annals of the Wars of "the pale and the purple rose."

From the day that the warriors of the White Rose – thanks to Montagu's supineness in the cause of the Red – were allowed to pass the Trent on their progress southward, a great battle between Edward and Warwick became inevitable; and as the king, without any desire to avoid a collision with the earl, led a Yorkist army toward London, the earl, with every determination to insist on a conflict with the king, mustered a Lancastrian army at Coventry.

England, it was plain, could not, for many days longer, hold both Edward and Warwick. Each was animated by an intense antipathy to the other, and both panted for the hour that was to bring their mortal feud to the arbitrament of the sword. The circumstances were altogether unfavorable to compromise or delay; and events hurried on with a rapidity corresponding to the characters of the rival chiefs. While Edward Plantagenet was taking possession of London, Richard Neville was advancing, by the high northern road, toward the capital; and, almost ere the king had time to do more than remove his spouse from the sanctuary of Westminster to Baynard's Castle, the trumpet of war summoned him to an encounter with the king-maker.

Warwick's rendezvous was Coventry; and to that city, at the earl's call, hastened thousands of men, to repair the loss which he had sustained by the defection of Clarence. Thither came Henry of Exeter and Edmund Somerset; and John De Vere, Earl of Oxford, with a host of warriors devoted to the house of Lancaster; and John Neville, Marquis of Montagu, who, although not supposed to relish the company of Lancastrians, appeared eager in his brother's quarrel to sacrifice the prejudices of his life and redeem the fatal error he had committed at Pontefract.

At this stage of affairs, the Duke of Clarence endeavored to open a door for the earl's reconciliation to the king. Such an attempt was indeed hopeless; but the duke, perhaps suffering some twinges of conscience on account of his treachery, sent to excuse himself for changing sides, and to entreat Warwick to make peace with Edward. His message was treated with lofty scorn. "I would rather," said the earl, "die true to myself, than live like that false and perjured duke; and I vow not, until I have either lost my life or subdued mine enemies, to lay down the sword to which I have appealed."

With a resolution not to be broken, Warwick, with Oxford leading his van, marched from Coventry; and, hoping to arrest the Yorkist army ere the king was admitted into London, he advanced southward with all speed. Learning, however, that the archbishop had proved false, and that the citizens had proved obsequious, the earl, on reaching St. Albans, halted to allow his men to repose from their fatigues, and on Saturday moved forward to Barnet, standing on a hill midway between St. Albans and London. Here the earl, resolving to await the approach of his royal foe, called a halt; and, having ordered his vanguard to take possession of the little town, he encamped on a heath known as Gladsmuir, and forming part of an extensive chase, stocked with beasts of game.

The king did not long keep the earl waiting. No sooner did the martial monarch hear that his great foe had left Coventry and was approaching the metropolis, than he girded on his armor, with a heart as fearless of the issue as had animated the mightiest of his ancestors when, on a summer morning, he marched to Evesham to strike down the puissance of Simon de Montfort. It was with no faint hopes of success, indeed, that, at the head of an army devoted to his cause, Edward, clad in magnificent armor, and mounted on a white steed, with crimson caparisons, lined with blue and embroidered with flowers of gold, rode out of London, cheered by the good wishes of the citizens, surrounded by the companions of his exile, and attended by George of Clarence, whom he could not prudently trust elsewhere, and by Henry of Windsor, whom he could not safely leave behind.

On the afternoon of Saturday Edward left London, and late in the evening of that day he reached Barnet. As the Yorkist army approached the town, the king's outriders, meeting those of the earl, chased them past the embattled tower of the church dedicated to St. John, and advanced till, through the darkness, they perceived the army of Warwick. On being informed that the earl was so near, the king ordered his army to move through Barnet, and encamped in the darkness, close to the foe, on Gladsmuir Heath. The king took up his quarters for the night in the town, and his soldiers lay on the heath. They had no sleep, however, for so near was the Lancastrian camp that the voices of men and the neighing of horses were distinctly heard.

Both armies had artillery; and Warwick's guns were, during the night, fired perseveringly at the foe. The king, it appears, did not reply to this salutation. Indeed, Edward early discovered that the Lancastrians were unaware of the exact position of the Yorkist army, and thanked his stars that such was the case; for, though Edward's intention had been to place his men immediately in front of their foes, the darkness had prevented him from perceiving the extent of Warwick's lines, and thus it happened that, while ranging his forces so as far to outstride the earl's left wing, he had failed to place them over against the right. Seldom has an error in war proved so fortunate for a general. The earl happened to have all his artillery posted in the right division of his army, and concluded that the Yorkists were within reach. Edward, as the fire from Warwick's guns flashed red through the darkness, saw the advantage he had unintentionally gained, and issued strict orders that none of his guns should be fired, lest the enemy "should have guessed the ground, and so leveled their artillery to his annoyance." This precaution was successful, and the earl's gunners thundered till daybreak without producing any effect.

Ere the first streak of day glimmered in the sky, the armies were in motion; and when the morning of Easter Sunday dawned, a flourish of trumpets and a solemn tolling from the bell of the Church of St. John aroused the inhabitants of Barnet, and announced that the game of carnage was about to begin. The weather was by no means favorable for that display of martial chivalry which, in sunshine, the field would have presented to the eyes of spectators. The morning was damp and dismal. A thick fog overshadowed the heath; and the mist hung so closely over both armies that neither Yorkists nor Lancastrians could see their foes, save at intervals. The fighting men of that age were as superstitious as their neighbors; and the soldiers on both sides concluded that the mists had been raised to favor the king by Friar Bungey, the potent magician whose spells were supposed to have raised the wind that kept Margaret of Anjou from the shores of England.

Nevertheless, at break of day the earl ordered his trumpets to sound, and proceeded to set his men in battle order. The task was one of no small delicacy; but it seems to have been performed with great judgment. Though Warwick was the soul and right arm of the Lancastrian army, the battle was so arranged as to give no umbrage to the time-tried champions of the Red Rose. The centre host, consisting chiefly of archers and bill-men, was commanded by Somerset; Oxford, who appears to have been trusted by the Lancastrians, shared the command of the right wing with the conqueror of Hexham; and, in command of the left, Exeter, who had helped to lose battle after battle, had the distinction of participating with "the setter-up and plucker-down of kings."

Meanwhile, Edward had roused himself from his repose, arrayed himself royally for the battle, placed on his head a basnet surrounded with a crown of ornament, mounted his white charger – in that age regarded as the symbol of sovereignty – and taken the field to vindicate his right to the throne of his two great namesakes who reposed at Westminster in the Confessor's Chapel.

Edward, in marshaling his army, had to contend with none of the difficulties that beset Warwick. The Yorkist army was devoted to his cause, as the chief of the White Rose; and the captains shared each other's political sympathies and antipathies. Moreover, they were the king's own kinsmen and friends – kinsmen who had partaken of his prosperity, and were eager to contribute to his triumph – friends who had accompanied him into exile, and were ready to die in his defense. Under such circumstances, the disposition of the Yorkist army was easily made. Edward, keeping the fickle Clarence and the feeble Henry in close attendance, took the command of the centre, and was opposed to that part of the Lancastrian forces commanded by Somerset. At the head of the right wing was placed Gloucester, though still in his teens, to cope with Exeter, the husband of his sister, and Warwick, the sworn friend of his sire. At the head of the left was posted Hastings, to face his brothers-in-law, Oxford and Montagu. Besides these divisions, the king kept a body of choice troops in reserve to render aid, as the day sped on, where aid should be most required.

Agreeably to the custom of the period, the king and the earl addressed their adherents, each asserting the justice of his cause – Edward denouncing the patrician hero as rebel and traitor; while Warwick branded his royal adversary as usurper and tyrant. This ceremony over, the hostile armies joined battle. At first fortune with fickle smile favored the Lancastrians. The error made by the Yorkists in taking up their position on the previous evening now caused them serious inconvenience. In fact, the Lancastrian right wing, composed of horsemen, so overlapped the king's troops opposed to them that Oxford and Montagu were enabled to crush Hastings as in a serpent's fold. The Yorkist left wing was completely discomfited; and many of the men spurred out of the fog, escaped from the field, dashed through Barnet, galloped along the high north road to London, and excused their flight by reporting that the earl had won the day.

The conclusion at which the fugitives had arrived was quite premature. Indeed, could these doughty champions of the White Rose have seen what was passing in other parts of the field, they would probably have postponed their ride to the capital. Fearful difficulties encompassed the right wing of the Lancastrian army. Gloucester was proving how formidable a war-chief a Plantagenet could be even in his teens, and enacting his part with such skill and courage as would have done credit to warriors who had led the Yorkists to victory at Towton and Northampton. With an eye that few things escaped, the boy-duke availed himself of the advantage which Montagu and Oxford had turned to such account in their struggle with Hastings; and, urging on the assault with characteristic ferocity, he succeeded in placing his adversaries in the unfortunate predicament to which the left wing of the Yorkists had already been reduced. At the same time, the Lancastrians opposed to Gloucester were dispirited by the fall of Exeter, who sunk to the ground wounded with an arrow; and so dense continued the fog over Gladsmuir Heath that they were not even consoled with the knowledge of Oxford's signal success. Edward, however, early became aware that his left wing had been destroyed, and charged the Lancastrian centre with such vigor as threw Somerset's ranks into confusion.

The ignorance of the Lancastrians as to the success of their right wing, was not the only disadvantage they suffered from the fog. The soldiers considered the dense watery vapors not as ordinary exhalations, but as supernatural means used by Friar Bungey to aid the Yorkist cause; and, from the beginning, the gloom had been decidedly favorable to Edward's operations. Ere the battle long continued, the fog did better service to the king than could have been rendered to him by hundreds of knights.

Among the retainers of feudal magnates of that age it was the fashion to wear a badge to indicate the personage whose banner they followed. From the time of the Crusades the badge of the house of De Vere had been a star with streams; and from the morning of Mortimer's Cross, the cognizance of the house of York had a sun in splendor. At Barnet, Oxford's men had the star embroidered on their coats; Edward's men the sun on their coats. The devices bore such a resemblance that, seen through a fog, one might easily be mistaken for the other; and it happened that on Gladsmuir Heath there was such a mistake.

When Oxford had pursued the Yorkists under Hastings to the verge of the Heath, it occurred to him that he might render a signal service to his party by wheeling round and smiting Edward's centre in the flank. Unfortunately some Lancastrian archers, who perceived without comprehending this movement, mistook De Vere's star, in the mist, for Edward's sun, drew their bows to the head, and sent a flight of shafts rattling against the mail of the approaching cavalry. Oxford's horsemen instantly shouted "Treason! treason! we are all betrayed!" and Oxford, amazed at such treatment from his own party, and bewildered by the cry of "Treason!" that now came from all directions, concluded that there was foul play, and rode off the field at the head of eight hundred men.

The plight of the Lancastrians was now rapidly becoming desperate; and Edward hastened their ruin by urging fresh troops upon their disordered ranks. Warwick, however, showed no inclination to yield. "The Stout Earl" in fact had been little accustomed to defeat; and such was the terror of his name that, on former occasions, the cry of "A Warwick! A Warwick!" had been sufficient to decide the fate of a field. But at St. Albans, at Northampton, and at Towton Field, the earl's triumphs had been achieved over Beauforts, Hollands, and Tudors, men of ordinary courage and average intellect. At Barnet he was in the presence of a warrior of prowess and a war-chief of pride, whose heart was not less bold, and whose eye was still more skillful than his own.

Edward, in fact, could not help perceiving that nothing but a violent effort was now required to complete his victory. Up to this stage he appears to have issued commands to his friends with the skill of a Plantagenet: he now executed vengeance on his foes with the cruelty of a Mortimer. Mounted on his white steed, with his teeth firmly set, the spur pressing his horse's side, and his right hand lifted up to slay, he charged the disheartened Lancastrians, bearing down all opposition; and, instead of crying, as on former occasions, "Smite the captains, but spare the commons!" he said, "Spare none who favor the rebel earl!"

While the king's steed was bearing him over the field, and his arm was doing fearful execution on the foe, the king-maker's operations were, unfortunately for the Lancastrian cause, limited to a single spot. In former battles, with a memorable exception, Warwick had fought on horseback. When mounted, the earl had been in the habit of riding from rank to rank to give orders, of breaking, with his sword or his battle-axe in hand, into the enemy's lines, with the cry of "A Warwick! A Warwick!" and encouraging his army by deeds of prowess, wherever the presence of a daring leader was most necessary. At Barnet, however, he had been prevailed on to dismount, and send his steed away, that he might thus, as when he killed his horse at Towton, prove to his adherents that he was determined never to leave the field till he was either a conqueror or a corpse. Most unfortunate for the earl proved this deviation from his ordinary custom, when the day wore on and the men grew weary, and looked in vain for the presence of their chief to cheer their spirits and sustain their courage.

It was seven o'clock when the fight began. Long ere noon both wings of the Lancastrian army had vanished, and the chiefs of the Red Rose had disappeared from the field. Oxford had fled to avoid being betrayed. Somerset had fled to escape death. Exeter, abandoned by his attendants, lay on the cold heath of Gladsmuir among the dead and dying. But Warwick was resolved that the battle should only terminate with his life; and, at the head of the remaining division, opposed to the Yorkists whom Edward commanded in person, the earl posted himself for a final effort to avert his doom. Montagu, it would appear, was by his brother's side.

More furiously than ever now raged the battle; and far fiercer than hitherto was the struggle that took place. Opposed more directly to each other than they had previously been, the king and the earl exerted their prowess to the utmost – one animated by hope, the other urged by despair. The example of such leaders was not, of course, lost; and men of all ranks in the two armies strained every nerve, and struggled hand to hand with their adversaries.

 
"Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well."
 

On both sides the slaughter had been considerable. On Edward's side Lord Say and Sir John Lisle, Lord Cromwell and Sir Humphrey Bourchier, with about fifteen hundred soldiers, bit the dust. On Warwick's side twenty-three knights, among whom was Sir William Tyrrel, and three thousand fighting men fell to rise no more. At length, after a bloody and obstinate contest had been maintained, Edward saw that the time had arrived to strike a sure and shattering blow. There still remained a body of Yorkists who had been kept in reserve for any emergency. The king ordered up these fresh troops, and led them to the assault. Warwick fronted this new peril with haughty disdain; and, in accents of encouragement, appealed to his remaining adherents to persevere. "This," said he, "is their last resource. If we withstand this one charge the field will yet be ours." But the earl's men, jaded and fatigued, could not encounter such fearful odds with success; and Warwick had the mortification of finding that his call was no longer answered by his friends, and that his battle-cry no longer sounded terrible to his foes.

Warwick could not now have entertained any delusions as to the issue of the conflict. He was conquered, and he must have felt such to be the case. The disaster was irremediable, and left him no hope. The descendant of Cospatrick did not stoop to ask for mercy, as Simon de Montfort had done under somewhat similar circumstances, only to be told there was none for such a traitor; nor did he, by a craven flight, tarnish the splendid fame which he had won on many a stricken field. Life, in fact, could not any longer have charms for him; and, ceasing to hope for victory, he did not feel any wish to survive defeat. A glorious death only awaited the king-maker – such a death as history should record in words of admiration and poets celebrate in strains of praise.

Under such circumstances, the great earl ventured desperately into the thickest of the conflict; and, sword in hand, threw himself valiantly among countless enemies. Death, which he appeared to seek, did not shun him; and he faced the king of terrors with an aspect as fearless as he had ever presented to Henry or to Edward. The king-maker died as he had lived. In the melancholy hour which closed his career – betrayed by the wily archbishop; deserted by the perjured Clarence; abandoned on the field by his new allies; and conquered by the man whom he had set on a throne – even in that hour, the bitterest perhaps of his life, Warwick was Warwick still; and Montagu, perhaps caring little to survive the patriot earl, rushed in to his rescue, and fell by his side.

Naturally enough, the Yorkists breathed more freely after Warwick's fall; and, with some reason, they believed that the last hopes of Lancaster had been trodden out on the field of Barnet. Edward, as he rode from the scene of carnage toward London, imagined his throne absolutely secure; and, not dreaming that ere a few days he would have to gird on his armor for a struggle hardly less severe than that out of which he had come a conqueror, the king made a triumphal entry into the capital, repaired to St. Paul's, presented his standard as an offering, and returned thanks to God for giving him such a victory over his enemies.

The bodies of Warwick and Montagu were placed in one coffin, conveyed to London, and exposed for three days at St. Paul's, that all who desired might assure themselves that the great earl and his brother no longer lived. Even Warwick's death did not appease Edward's hatred; and he would have cared little to refuse interment befitting the earl's rank to the corpse of the departed hero. The king, however, mourned the death of Montagu; and, from regard to the memory of the marquis, he ordered that both brothers should be laid among their maternal ancestors.

During the fourteenth century, one of those Earls of Salisbury, whose name is associated with the era of English chivalry and with the noblest of European orders, had founded an abbey at Bisham, in Berkshire. This religious house, which stood hard by the River Thames, and had become celebrated as the sepulchre of the illustrious family which the king-maker, through his mother, represented, was chosen as the last resting-place of Warwick and of the brother who fought and fell with him at Barnet. At the Reformation, Bisham Abbey was destroyed; and, unfortunately, nothing was left to mark the spot where repose the ashes of "The Stout Earl," whom Shakspeare celebrates as the "proud setter-up and puller-down of kings."